Huddy cited developers including Dice, known for its successful Battlefield series, and Critech are among the minority of game developers who are looking to get around the API. “It’s not something most developers want,” he said. “If you held a vote among developers, they would go for Direct X or Open GL, because it’s a great platform.”

In particular, Robison touted Direct X’s stability and the standardization it has brought to what was a highly-segmented industry. “We saw some of the chaos before Direct X coalesced the industry,” Robison said. “In the past there were all kinds of APIs developers had to worry about.”